Ok, Here's Chapter 8. So, should I wait til my school starts up again to post the next chapter?? ::grins evilly::
Oh, And I will be editing again, so it once again might take a short while to get the next chapter up. Sorry!
Snape crept up to the front door and knocked, feeling as though he were a piece of bait Hagrid used to lure animals into his traps. Though he knew very well that if he was caught, Hagrid's humane techniques would not be put into use. Snape did not wish to die that way and knew he couldn't or Harry would die too. Somehow, that prospect was now bleaker to him than it had been before Harry's earlier plea.
Snape shifted his weight and for once wished he had been on better terms with both Harry and his parents. Then they wouldn't be in this predicament.
He quickly squelched that wish as he soon as he realized what he was thinking. The boy was getting to him too. Before he knew it he'd be part of Potter's fan club, giving him an easy ride to his grave.
Still, Snape couldn't stop the shudder that passed through him at the thought of Harry's death, but he put it off to the slight chill in the night sea air.
No one answered the door, but Snape could see through a window in the door that it was definitely a wizard's home. He could see a winter robe hanging on a coat hanger in the front hall and a candle floating unlit above the hall's center.
Snape glanced around him at the surrounding darkness, looking for any sign that someone he didn't want finding him had heard his earlier knock. He could see no one and so decided it safe to knock more loudly, just in case the house's occupants had simply gone to bed early.
When it became clear to him that again no answer was forthcoming, Snape looked around him for a sign of life. There was none once more. He crept around the side of the house, checking each window he came to in case one had been left unlocked. Finally, after what seemed to be hours of tedious searching, he found one that had not only been left unlocked, but open.
Once more glancing around for anyone that could see him, both inside and outside the house, Snape crawled through the window. A sense of urgency was driving him to undignified lengths to get out of sight quickly and an even more urgent need was driving him to find a way to get Harry out of danger.
Snape had been right in assuming that this was a wizarding house. An assumption that was immediately justified when he saw the fire in the fireplace that was located in the room next to the one he'd in by. It was a large blue fire that was kept magically in place so that it could burn at all hours without the owner worrying over whether or not it would spread to the rest of the house.
On the mantle rested trinkets, most of which were for the fireplace itself. Snape walked quickly over to these and picked up a square, red jar and found it full of floo powder. Snape smirked in triumph at his discovery and had lifted his hand to replace the jar when he saw it - his wand.
His wand lay just behind where the jar had been and resting beside it was Harry's wand.
Snape's eyes widened and his smirk faded away to his usual sour expression. He reached up and took his wand down from the mantle, along with Harry's, before replacing the jar of floo powder.
Forcing himself to act, rather than contemplate the situation, he quickly hid his wand within his robes and made for the window that Harry lay under. He quickly opened the window and raised himself into it, preparing to jump out it.
"You picked the wrong house, you know," came the soft voice of their former captor from behind Snape.
Snape snapped his head around at the voice. There is the darkness of the front hall stood the still cloaked dark figure, its wand raised and ready.
"You..." Snape growled for lack of anything else to say.
"Yes, me," the dark figure laughed.
"So, where's the boy," asked the dark figure, reminding Snape that Harry was safely below the window.
"Potter and I split up," Snape growled as loudly as he dared, all but throwing Harry's wand, which was in the hand hidden by his body, down.
Snape's eyes narrowed as he heard a very weak, "Ow," but knew by the dark figure's lack of reaction that it hadn't heard anything.
"With that boy as ill as he was," the dark figure said incredulously, advancing slowly toward Snape in the near total darkness. "I sincerely doubt it. You've probably hidden him somewhere, while you went for help."
Snape strived to keep the sour look on his face as a feeling of panic threatened to engulf him.
'Harry is safe,' Snape told himself as he retorted, "You think I care how well that pitiful boy fares? I have my own life to look after."
The dark figure stood horribly still for a moment before, as though thinking, before replying with a smile in its cold voice, "No, you care for him. Or you wouldn't have bothered coming to rescue him."
"You-Know-Who ordered all the Deatheaters to find Harry Potter and capture him," Snape spat angrily.
"He had already been captured for You-Know-Who," snapped the dark figure angrily. "I had it all under control!"
"All under control," Snape drawled. "He was dying and the Dark Lord wants Potter alive so that he can kill him himself."
"So you did hide him," the dark figure said triumphantly.
Snape cursed silently as his face screwed up in a look of utter malice.
"I do not have Harry Potter," he growled again.
"I'll bet you do," the dark figure said, its words practically dancing in joy. "I'll even bet he's hidden in the bushes below that window."
Something suddenly snapped within Snape and he launched himself at the dark figure. The dark figure simply shouted a curse that sent him sailing off course into the wall next to it. Snape slipped to the floor with blood running down his face from his now crooked, hook nose.
The dark figure began laughing as it walked over to the window, "I see I was correct."
Snape struggled to sit up, but leaned on his broken wrist and slipped to the floor in agony.
"Well, I'm sure a live traitor will make up for a dead Boy-Who-Lived," the figure laughed, now at the window.
"No," Snape moaned almost inaudibly. He struggled to a sitting position, his head swimming, his wrist throbbing. "Harry."
The dark figure pointed its wand out the window and at the bushes below.
Then, to Snape's utter horror, it cried in a high-pitched scream, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Next Chapter: The Run
